Scrolling through Twitter today, I came across the headline “Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen comes under fire for telling Nina Turner she misunderstood MLK’s words.” The headline was trending, so I was clearly not the only one intrigued. Digging deeper, I found a video in which Hilary Rosen, a White woman and Democratic political strategist, attempted to shout down Nina Turner, a Black woman and national co-chair for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, on a segment of CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time in defense of the Biden campaign.
Understandably, there was a “Oh hell no, no she didn’t” moment. But when Hilary Rosen tweeted, “I’m horrified that anyone would think I would call Nina Turner “an angry black woman” I would NEVER!! After the TV hit last night, I was getting tons of ugly messages to keep fighting her using that phrase,” it was then that I Oprah knew for sure that “angry Black woman” was the new nigger. A label meant to incite outrage. A label meant to put the offender on the defensive.
Admittedly, I have often defended myself against the label “angry Black woman.” Why can’t I be characterized as passionate or direct?, I’ve argued. I realize now that I’ve been missing the characterizers’ point. Their point was not to characterize me so much as it was to distract from and diffuse a situation they were uncomfortable with and unable to be honest about. To distract me from making my very important point, to a position of defending myself against a stereotype, thus diffusing the situation. Like when someone calls out that another has lied and instead of talking about the facts, the conversation gets hijacked into, “Are you calling me a liar? Are you attacking my character? Who are you to…” You know the rest.
No more. I have decided to embrace it. You damn skippy I’m an “angry Black woman.”
I’m angry because I felt the need to parade my then 6-foot 14-year-old son around our new neighborhood so people knew he belonged there, even if he was walking or jogging in sweats and a hoodie. I’m angry because my workplace made me the problem and invalidated my experience when I spoke out about bias against women and of color faculty. I’m angry because police get to murder people who look like me, my son, my husband because they feel threatened. I’m angry because scientists defend race science because there is no evidence it hurts anyone they love. Because nearly half of 2016 voters elected a racist, misogynistic, ignorant, narcissistic liar as President—many of whom were my colleagues who prioritized paying less taxes over all. I’m angry because prison is the new Jim Crow and the GOP still gets to deny Black people the right to vote. Because brown immigrants are being detained and dying in concentration camps at our southern border. I could go on. And on. And on.
So, the real question—ally— is: Why aren’t you angry? Angry enough to say more than, “I’m sorry this happened to you.” Angry enough to do something that might spend a tiny bit of your privilege while those of us considered less than model minorities risk our very lives. Because, as the late great Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr stated in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail stated (and Hillary Rosen suggested Nina Turner didn’t have ‘the standing’ to speak to), “…the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” Until you—ally—are angry enough to stand and speak and act and write alongside me until we are all on equitable footing, I will continue to be an angry Black woman—and unapologetic for it.
Join me, fellow angry Black women, in resistance of those who attempt to derail our power with their words.